Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Validating and Verifying Your ICD-10 Remediation Efforts

When planning ICD-10 remediation efforts, forward thinking organizations may want to work backwards: and think about and plan early on about how they’ll verify and validate their remediated software, processes and procedures.

Here are a few ideas to chew on:

1.Identify major cutover and testing issues likely to impact core business processes; make sure your business and IT teams appreciate their meaning and possible impact to their respective areas of responsibility (AOR’s).

2.Identify and engage all stakeholders – internal and external - with development of test strategies impacting their AOR’s.

3.Query key business and IT leaders as to their level of comfort and ability to stand up to and meet their obligations.Including the following:

a.Do they have a good understanding of the existing processes that will be impacted by ICD-10?

b.What concerns do they have regarding their remediation knowledge and their control of sufficient resources to perform adequate ICD-10 testing while continuing to meet existing production and other non-ICD-10 obligations?

c.Decide how to best support those who indicate they might have trouble meeting these dual obligations. i.e. maintaining the current “as-is” while assisting with and ensuring their ability to meet the future “to-be.”

4.Periodically reconnect with those who initially indicate their ability to meet their ICD-10 obligations while maintaining their current operational duties.It’s often easy to say “all systems are go” yet come back later asking for more time and money. IMO, it’s against human nature to say you’re not sure about the unknown. Things change; shit happens.

5.Identify contingency plans to assist those who may become resource-constrained in the 11th hour. Or better yet at 14:30.

6.Consider using external resources to test your most critical processes.

What else do you want to know about ICD-10? Take this survey and tell me.I’ll share what I think.